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Black turnout is strong in early voting in South
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-24 14:14 The question then was would those newly registered voters turn out to vote, and now there are signs that they will. In Georgia, 230,000 more people have cast early ballots than voted absentee in 2004.
Many of those early voters have come from metro Atlanta counties, including heavily Democratic Fulton and DeKalb. Georgia election officials expect 1.4 million people to vote early this year, more than double the total from four years ago.It's the same in North Carolina, where State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett said two months ago he told senior staff members that mail-in and in-person early voting could reach 2 million ballots. Bartlett said his colleagues thought he was a little crazy. But based on results so far, more than 735,000 people had voted early as of early Thursday, "it looks like that we're going to be pretty close to that." The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires several Southern states to report racial breakdowns among voters, an effort designed to prevent discrimination. But North Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana are the only ones reporting that information as early voting is proceeding. "We believe in transparency," Bartlett said. North Carolina has long had more registered Democrats than Republicans but hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976. President Bush won the state by 12 percentage points four years ago. Bush beat John Kerry by 17 points in Georgia, a state that last voted Democratic in 1992. This year's trends are daunting for McCain, the Republican nominee. Polls out this week favor Obama in both North Carolina and Florida. Last year, Obama said his place on the Democratic ticket would boost African-American turnout by 30 percent, potentially opening up Southern states that his party hadn't won in more than a generation. But Obama campaign officials now play down the prospect that his place as the first black to top a major party ticket would sway enough voters to win the presidency. "I don't think we should talk only about race. There are so many other factors, age, geography," said spokeswoman Carolina Adelman. "This campaign's not about race, it's about bringing people together." Republicans also caution it would be a mistake to read too much into the early totals. McCain spokesman Mario Diaz said the GOP will benefit from high turnout on Election Day, and he noted the party has focused less on early voting than Obama. "We anticipate the support to only intensify by Election Day," he said. |
